


and back again

by theformerone



Series: before you 'verse [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, Wave Arc Remix, non massacre au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2020-07-29 13:41:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20083147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: Cell Seven's first mission to Uzushio goes — y'know, honestly? It goes really well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hahahaahhaha did you think it was over?

Haruno Mebuki is standing in the Nobi Tsubaki Research Library in Konohagakure General Hospital when her water breaks. 

Mebuki, while not a gifted medic, is a capable nurse. And upon feeling the swell of water slop down over her sandals, she promptly shuts her book and admits herself to the hospital. She has the presence of mind to ask another one of the nurses to phone Kizashi, and her husband arrives almost seconds before their firstborn daughter ushers herself into the world. 

Mebuki will always tell the story that way; that having Sakura was more like her daughter was giving birth to herself than Mebuki going through labor. Sakura came out before they even had the chance to give Mebuki the option of the epidural. 

It was more like a summoning, to be completely frank. 

* * *

"I don't want to remember anything unless I have to," she tells him, arms hanging lax at her sides. 

The Pure Land had been kind to Sakura, for how briefly she had been there. Her life with Mito had been long for the day's standards, but she hadn't managed to live much further past her sixty-fifth birthday. The trauma of the Fourth Shinobi War and the whirlwind that she had gone through after it had taken a great toll on her body. To be frank, Sakura was surprised she had made it as long as she did.

Mito survived her, and so did their children, but Sakura hadn't watched over them from the Pure Land. She had, had a full life, and had no need to stare into those of her loved ones. They didn't need her watching over them; she had done her job well enough in living that they could look out for themselves. She had only stopped in the Pure Land briefly, on her way to meet Hagoromo in the pocket dimension the Sage called home. 

Naruto was already gone from this place by the time she and Sasuke had died; altering the past so utterly had obliterated the version of the Pure Land that he used to reside in. His soul was in a different one now, with the souls of everyone that had been born in the original timeline, waiting to be born again into the future that Sasuke and Sakura had created. 

"What she said," Sasuke adds, just to be annoying. 

His cushy life as a monk of Amaterasu had given him a longer life than Sakura's, even though he arguably had been through more physical trauma than she had. Sasuke had made it to eighty before he passed from this life to the next. He had never become a priest, but the temple let the ever-lit lanterns at the front gates burn to the lowest they'd been in generations to mark his passing. 

They had loved him there. 

(Sasuke was going to get a kick out of Itachi being named after him, and technically being named after himself. Sakura is just happy her mother didn't get too inspired by her family's fealty to the Uchiha to name her Nadeshiko. That would've been too much.)

"You have always had sound judgement," Hagoromo agrees, stroking his beard and floating in lotus. It is very clear he is saying this to Sakura and not to Sasuke. Sakura snickers, even though she's sixty-five and too old to like it when people play favorites between her and Sasuke. "I assured Naruto that you would remember nothing, but if you believe it would be prudent to retain some of your memories, I will not begrudge you that."

He owed them. He owed them several lifetimes over. 

Sakura goes first, returning back to life. It happens a little bit like jumping into a pool. The fetus in Haruno Mebuki's belly is waiting for a soul to inhabit it, a little vessel like a clay pot waiting for Sakura to breathe life into it. 

Sakura had lived a shinobi's life twice over, with more hardship than any person currently living would be able to understand. She might have been a glutton for punishment for going back again. She might have been insane. 

But all of the work and time she and Sasuke had spent building, creating a new world, a world they could be safe in and proud of — Sakura wanted to see the payoff of her sacrifice. Of her hard work. 

She wanted to see the new world that Naruto had died to give them. That Sasuke had crawled out of the grave to protect. That she had run across the world and through time for. 

* * *

"Otouto, hurry up before you get left behind!"

"You're not my sister."

Sakura rolls her eyes. 

"But I am older than you. Should I call you my cute little kouhai instead?" she asks, snickering. 

Sasuke reaches out to swat her on the arm, but Sakura dances out of the way. 

"Children," Itachi says, looking up from where he's preparing their onigiri for the road, "behave, or no snacks."

"Nii-chan, no!" Sakura wails, rising to her tiptoes. "Collective punishment is illegal under our constitution! Punish Sasuke, not me!"

"Very ruthless of you, Sakura-chan!" chimes Kakashi from the front door. 

Sakura curses under her breath and scrambles for her pack. She hadn't realized they were _that _late. She also hadn't realized that she had been paying so little attention that Kakashi had gotten the jump on her. She'd be doing crunches for that as soon as they got to Uzushio. Sakura grimaces at her carelessness, and opens her pack to triple check she's got everything she needs. 

She had spent the night at the Uchiha compound before her and Sasuke's first official mission outside the village as Cell Seven. It was only another noncombatant mission, ferrying some documents from here to Uzushio to the Land of Waves. A messenger hawk could've done as much, but the Yondaime had insisted they go in person to keep relations with the other village strong.

Sakura thought that relations with Uzushio were plenty strong considering the Yondaime was the granddaughter of the Shodaime Hokage and the legendary Uzushio princess turned political superpower Uzumaki Mito. Not to mention she had learned medical ninjutsu from Nobi Tsubaki, the woman that had literally written _every _book on the subject. 

"He's the one that woke up late," Sakura argues, running her hands over her first aid kit. She didn't think she'd need it for such a brief mission, but her mother had insisted, and Sakura wasn't stubborn enough to ignore her. Besides, you never knew when bandits were afoot. 

"I was up at dawn doing katas," Sasuke sneers, tugging on his sandals. "You slept in."

"No, _I_ was up at dawn doing katas," Sakura snaps back. "I couldn't sleep."

And she hadn't been sure why. It wasn't that she was nervous. Sakura had been going on missions with Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei since she was seventeen. She had been probably over-excited when she got the announcement. 

Sakura has known Sasuke for longer than she can remember. He was her best friend. 

Her mother had taken her to the clinic on the Uchiha compound because the medics from Amaterasu's temple were miracle workers when it came to specialized pediatric care. Sakura had been prone to migraines as a little girl, and Uchiha children often suffered from them to due to the stress from their latent Sharingan. 

She had met Sasuke as a toddler; they were maybe two or three at the time. They met in the waiting room of the clinic. Sakura had wiggled out of her mother's arms and walked right up to Itachi. Mikoto had been busy that day with business as the head of the Uchiha clan, and Fugaku was out of the village at a conference for doujutsu users across the elemental nations. 

So it fell to Itachi - dressed still in his fine white and red priesthood robes - to take Sasuke to the doctor. Sakura had plopped down at Itachi's feet and grabbed Sasuke's hand, before sticking it in her mouth. Sasuke had screeched with laughter, and the rest was history. 

"Nervous?" Sasuke asks, lifting an eyebrow. 

"What for?" Sakura returns. 

"I dunno, maybe you're not happy about leaving your girlfriend behind," he says, voice simpering and sweet. 

Sakura's face turns as pink as her hair. 

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Yeah, and she never will be if you keep wussing out every time she tries to talk to you."

Sakura stops trying to fasten the latches on her black sandals so that she can throw one of them at Sasuke. 

"Children," Itachi says again, "behave."

Sakura sticks her tongue out at Sasuke and catches her shoe out of the air when he volleys it back at her. She settles down because she knows Itachi's serious voice when she hears it. He was more or less her and Sasuke's exclusive babysitter growing up. 

She shoves her foot into her sandal and does up the latches on the calf, face still burning as she thinks about Ino. 

If Sasuke has been Sakura's best friend for as long as she can remember, Ino has been her crush since probably before then. 

Sakura was without a doubt, the brightest kunoichi in her year, with Hyūga Hinata right behind her, and always gunning for the top spot. Yamanaka Ino, however, probably had the most shinobi sense out of _anyone _in their year, including her ridiculous lazy genius teammate Shikamaru. 

She was clever. Sharp as a whip. She could insult you and compliment you with the same four words, and all you'd want to do afterward was thank her. Not to mention she was stunning, with her purple turtlenecks and her white-blonde hair and her _eyes, _how could anything be bluer than the sky?

Okay, yes, maybe she has it bad. But it wasn't like she couldn't talk to Ino. She just got so tongue-tied when she wanted to. It was like there was so much Sakura wanted to say to her, and ask her about. It was like she had a lifetime's worth of feelings shoved into the confines of a crush that had blossomed in daycare, when Ino ripped the red ribbon off her own dress to tie back Sakura's hair when they were digging in the sandbox together. 

That had been it for Sakura. She had been in love from the tender age of three, all the way to now. She still has the ribbon, too. She wears it, a bright red band, across her throat like a choker. 

"I don't wuss out," Sakura says instead. She shrugs her backpack on and gets to her feet, striding into the kitchen to pick up the little kerchief Itachi has placed her rice balls in. "Umeboshi?" 

Itachi doesn't do so much as lift an eyebrow. Instead, he drops his hand onto her head, and gives her hair a ruffle. Sakura laughs. She keeps her hair cropped in a tight pixie cut precisely so that whenever Itachi (or Obito, or Shisui, honestly what was with the Uchiha and ruining other people's hair) shoved their hands in it, it always fell back into place right after. 

"Be good," Itachi tells her. 

Sakura smiles at him and leans up to give him a kiss on the cheek. 

"Yes, nii-chan," she says, dragging out the vowels so he knows what she really thinks of the order. Itachi smiles back at her, and Sakura quickly re-opens the kerchief so she can wolf down one of her onigiri. 

She heads out of the main house on the compound, where Kakashi is just outside. He's got his hands stuffed into his pockets, and Rin and Obito are both flanking him. 

"Morning, senpai," she chirps, sidling up to Rin and giving the older woman an affectionate hipcheck. Rin keeps her balance and knocks Sakura right back. "How're the little ones?"

Rin blows her bangs out of her eyes, her arms across her chest. She worked full time at the clinic on the Uchiha compound after she, Kakashi, and Obito were wed. 

"Perfect in every way," Rin replies, "but their parents? Fuckers, every last one of them."

Sakura snorts. Rin was a saint for being a pediatric physician specializing in shinobi children. There weren't very many doctors in the field because their bedside manner had to accommodate shinobi parents being too paranoid to let anyone stick a needle in their kid. 

"Senpai," Sakura says, mind snapping to attention. "Did you send along my application to Yondaime-sama? Have you gotten a response yet?"

Sakura was eighteen, and Cell Seven was taking official missions, which meant that she was officially eligible to enter Senju Tsunade's medic apprenticeship program. Since she had taken the hat, Tsunade had cut her class down from seven to three, and Sakura was gunning for a spot. 

"Of course," Rin replies, "and with a glowing recommendation from both me and your primary sensei." 

"You've got this in the bag, Sakura-chan," Obito adds, grinning at her from where he's got an arm around Kakashi's waist. 

Sakura beams, and lets Rin throw an arm around her for a side hug. 

"You focus on your mission to Uzushio," her mentor says, giving her a noogie and messing up Sakura's hair again. "By the time you'll get back, you'll be in that program along with Ino-chan, and maybe you'll get a chance to make a move."

Sakura's face flushes pink again, and she wriggles out of her senpai's grip. Because Sakura was clanless, she had been assigned Nohara Rin as her mentor when she turned seventeen, the same time she had been assigned to Cell Seven with Sasuke.

The number of people in their year had shaken out awkawrdly, but Sakura didn't mind being the only person on a two-man cell. Besides, she, Sasuke, and Kakashi-sensei worked together like a fine tuned machine. When Sakura and Sasuke weren't too busy giving each other shit, that is.

Sakura would stay on with Rin as her senpai even after Cell Seven dissolved, or went off the active duty roster, if they ever had to for any reason. She doubted it would ever come to that. Sakura had been born and raised in peacetime. Shinobi weren't unnecessary, but their jobs weren't as dangerous as they used to be. She'd probably have an especially long career as a medic nin, and she could make bank working with civilians, too. Or she could specialize like Rin had. 

Sakura was a modern girl in a modern world and the possibilities were endless. 

"Can we please go now?" she asks. She turns around when she hears Sasuke hopping down the stairs outside of the main house. "C'mon, sensei, before someone actually makes me die of embarrassment."

Kakashi lifts an eyebrow at her, her sensei's twin black eyes glittering with mischief. 

"If you're having trouble explaining how you feel to her, maybe you could try reading — ,"

"I'm _not _reading smut written by some _dipshit _who thinks lesbians don't cut their nails before they go at it."

Sakura had made the mistake of picking up one of her teacher's dirty novels. Whoever wrote the Icha Icha Paradise series had clearly never talked to a real life lesbian before. Sakura wanted to file a complaint against the man's whole career. 

"And with that," Itachi says, poking his head out of the house, "it's past nine. You'll be late. Shoo."

"You heard the priest," Sasuke grumbles, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dark pants. 

Rin double checks Sakura's first aid kit and Obito slips a thing of specialized eye drops into Sasuke's hand. They both give Kakashi a kiss on the cheek before bounding off back to their own work; the clinic for Rin, the police force for Obito. 

Cell Seven leaves the Uchiha compound a record ten minutes late; the team as a unit generally ran closer to fifteen minutes, or a half an hour behind. It was all the bickering. 

They make it to the massive sealing arrays on top of the Founders Monument just in time. The sealing arrays for traveling were largely on Uzumaki Mito's head, while the ones for protecting the village were on top of the Shodaime and the Niidaime. On top of Uchiha Madara and Uchiha Izuna's massive rock skulls were seals for summoning the great kitsune that protected Konohagakure in times of great need. 

Shiranui and his squad are already there, lifting eyebrows and completely unsurprised by the team's tardiness. Sakura bypasses the men to give a quick hello to Tenten, on her own sealing apprenticeship with Shiranui. She was aiming for a research position as a fellow at Uzushio's sealing research center the same way Sakura was gunning for Tsunade's program. 

She barely got to say 'hello' to the other girl before Shiranui gave a signal and his team moved into formation. 

"No worries," Tenten says, shrugging a shoulder. "We can totally talk when you get back. You can tell me all about it!"

"Sounds good," Sakura replies, detouring back towards the massive sealing array on Uzumaki Mito's head. 

She thinks back to her training, to every time she's concentrated enough of her chakra to practice this precise technique. The transportation seals between Konoha and Uzushio had been carved into the Founders Monument mere months after the founding of Konohagakure had been completed.

The two villages were connected not only by the blood of Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Mito, but also by the chakra of every shinobi that used the seals to travel from one village to the next.

They only need about a thimble-full of chakra each to make the leap. The seal beneath them was as old as the village itself, and needed Shiranui and his team to help guide the chakra that Cell Seven was flooding into it. 

Sakura was pretty sure that Tenten wanted her research position so that she could fix that little issue. 

"Save some pretty Uzushio girls for me!" Tenten bellows as the air grows charged and staticky with the power that she and her teammates are flooding into it. Sakura laughs (because Tenten's mountain sized crush on Temari was the only reason she could ream Sakura like that without recompense) and then she's sucked away into chakra and ink and air. 

* * *

She lands flat on her stomach like some kind of idiot. Her whole body feels like she's stuck her finger into an electrical socket, or stood too close to Sasuke when Kakashi was teaching him Chidori. 

Sakura pushes herself up to her knees and spits out some sand that had managed to make its way into her mouth. 

"Alright there?" 

She blinks, squinting bright beachy sunlight out of her eyes. In front of her, there's the delegation waiting for their arrival. Well, it's more one shinobi blonder than the light above that's trying to blind Sakura.

"If it's your first jump that big, it's ordinary to feel a bit out of sorts," the blonde in front of her says. He offers her a hand up, and Sakura takes it. "You should've warned your students, Kakashi."

"Maa, sensei, they've got to learn by _doing." _

The blonde man rolls his eyes, and Sakura gets her feet back steady underneath her. 

"You must be Namikaze Minato," Sakura surmises. The long forelocks, the bright hair, and the Konoha leaf stitched into the shoulder of his clothing told her as much. This was Kakashi's sensei, before he had married Uzushio's princess and became a diplomat between the nations to stay with her. "Nice to meet you!"

Minato nods at her, a kind smile on his face. 

"Good to meet you, too, Sakura-chan." At the use of her name, Sakura lifts an eyebrow. Minato waves a hand, dismissing her curiosity. "I know everything." 

He gives her a jaunty wink as he says it, then he lets go of her hand to help Sasuke to his feet. The only person that didn't seem out of sorts after the journey was their teacher. 

A strange feeling hits Sakura's stomach with a suddenness that makes her frown. It was probably just an after effect of the transportation seal; nausea was a common reaction for first jumps, especially large ones like the one from Fire to Whirlpool Country. 

But this didn't feel precisely like nausea. It felt more like - Like a gut feeling times a thousand. 

She doesn't make any indication she isn't well; she's her team's medic, and she has to quickly take care of herself so that her team doesn't suffer. She takes a few slow, steadying breaths, tasting salt in the air from the Yorokobi Sea, feels the breeze against her skin. The feeling seems to settle, and she can feel herself relax. 

Standing on the beach like this, it was nice. Pleasant. Almost a little nostalgic. It feels like coming home after a long day. Like Uzushio feels her chakra, and is welcoming there. 

Perhaps that was true. The entire village was covered in seals, and the seals were full of the chakra of the people that lived on the island. It was possible that the village itself knew she was an ally because of the seal that had sent her there, and it was welcoming her. 

Romantic as the thought is, Sasuke looks like he's on the verge of vomiting, and Sakura immediately sticks a hand into her pack to find a traveler's pill for him. The irony of a shinobi getting motion sickness was not lost on her. 

Before she can, there's a twist and a flicker of bright orange light, like fireworks erupting in the middle of the air, and then the smell of oranges. Then, there is another boy. 

Not a boy, not really. He's Sasuke's height, which means he's their age. His vibrant hakama with the white spiral of the Uzumaki on his back claims him as an Uzushio shinobi, and his jacket painted in the blues and oranges and reds of the sky over the sea at dusk. His hair was long, longer than Namikaze Minato's, and kept in a tight tail at the base of his neck, though the rest of his hair stuck up just as wispy and out of place as Sakura's. 

Two decorative pins stick out of the ponytail, with long white seals dangling from each. Sticking out of his mess of hair, is a flat, dark golden circlet. A crown. 

Her stomach lurches hard in her gut, and Sakura doesn't know why. 

The shinobi in front of her looks just as confused by his appearance as Sakura feels. She opens her mouth to say something, but can't make the words come out. The shinobi looks from her to Sasuke, to Kakashi, but Sasuke's gaze doesn't leave the shinobi's face. 

He kind of looks as dumb as he says Sakura looks when she's staring at Ino. 

"Naruto," Minato says, eyebrows high. "You're early."

And then Sakura's jaw drops. No wonder Sasuke looks like an idiot. He was staring at Uzushio's crown prince, Uzumaki Naruto! Sakura was going to ream him over this _forever. _

"Yeah," Naruto replies, only taking his eyes off of Sasuke long enough to look over at Sakura, even though his father is talking to him. "I just — uh, felt like being punctual?"

Minato nods and jerks his head towards his own former student. 

"Shall we then?" he asks Kakashi.

"We shall," and Kakashi falls into step beside him. 

They leave Sasuke and Sakura on the beach with Naruto, each of them staring at each other, with their jaws a little slack. 

Somewhere in the pocket between this land and the Pure one, Hagoromo strokes his beard, and laughs. 


	2. Chapter 2

_"NARUTO!"_

There isn't enough time to acknowledge the fact that Sasuke is currently mooning over a prince before said prince's face suddenly turns. He drops, his ponytail the only thing rising as he hits the floor. A kunoichi with a stunning head of hair the rich red color of wine dives through the air, landing on her hands, and executing a perfect barrel roll before she bounces back onto her feet. 

She's gorgeous to say the least, and even though Sakura's crush on Ino was probably born inside of her body, she totally understands why Sasuke is gawking at Naruto. Uzushio shinobi were _pretty. _This kunoichi is dressed in a sleeveless pale purple turtleneck, her ash gray haori sporting stylish diamond shaped cut-outs along her sleeves. There's a sigil on her back that makes something in the back of Sakura's mind itch. 

She recognizes it in her conscious mind; it's the symbol of Nobi, one of the goddesses of Uzushio that had been introduced to the Uchiha in the early days after the First War had ended. Sakura had seen the small shrine the Uchiha still kept for her on their property, out of respect to their family's long friendship with the Uzumaki. 

But something in her gut wants her to reach out and touch the circling golden flames on the girl's back, wants to bunch up the fabric in her hands and -- 

"Yowch!" Naruto bellows as the kunoichi slams her fist on top of Naruto's head and gives him a truly vicious noogie. 

"Naruto-baka," she hisses, "did something crawl inside of your skull and die this morning?" 

"Karin - ouch, you can't just - oww!"

Karin wrestles Naruto into a headlock that he doesn't seem too worried about getting out of, despite his complaining. Kakashi and Minato had stopped walking as soon as Karin had announced herself, and Sakura looks to Minato for some indication of what's going on, but he's hiding a laugh behind his hand. 

A sudden gust of wind from above, and another kunoichi is descending from the sky, just as stunning as the last. This one has purple hair and amber eyes like the bright sun shining overhead, like the golden sands shifting underneath Sakura's feet. 

"Ko-nee-chan!" Naruto bellows, "make her stop!"

A sudden wall of paper rises between Naruto and Karin, separating them. 

"We have guests, Karin," the older kunoichi says, her paper wings fluttering and folding away into nowhere as her feet touch down just beside them. She gestures her head to Sasuke and Naruto, and gives Kakashi a polite nod. Kakashi nods back, and Sakura wonders exactly how much of the world her sensei has seen in his life. 

"Behave yourself," she continues. "Especially in front of our allies."

Karin's cheeks go red, and she adjusts the black frames of her glasses on her nose. She takes a side step away from Naruto as she does, muttering, "Yes, Konan-taichou." 

Konan doesn't do so much as sniff in Karin's direction, but she does turn those gorgeous eyes of hers onto Sakura, and smiles. "I apologize for her behavior. Welcome to Uzushio, shinobi-san."

"Uh," Sakura says beautifully, "no problem!" 

"These are Nobi Karin and Fubuki Konan, two of Naruto's Handmaid Guard," Minato says by way of explanation. "You cut short your training with everyone to come greet our guests, Naruto-kun?" 

Naruto scratches the back of his head, sending the two seals in his hair swaying from where they rest in his ponytail. 

"I, uh," he stammers, mostly trying to look at his father and not at Sasuke, "I thought I was gonna be late, so I decided to come early!"

"The only thing you're ever early for is dinner," Karin grumbles. A severe look from Konan makes her shut her mouth and kick at the sand under her feet. 

"Haruno Sakura," Sakura says, stepping forward, deciding to at least try to make everything less immediately awkward than it already is. 

She bows politely to both the kunoichi, and while Karin seems suspicious of her, Konan acknowledges her with a stately nod. Out of the three of them, Konan is the only one that Sakura would peg for royalty. 

"Uchiha Sasuke," says the very same from just half a step behind Sakura, finally deciding to speak up. Naruto's eyes seem to light up at that, and he looks between the two of them with excitement written clearly across his face. 

"Uzumaki Naruto," he beams, his smile somehow even brighter than Konan's eyes and the sun overhead. "Nice to meetcha!"

* * *

It seems like Sasuke is physically incapable of taking his eyes off of Naruto. 

He considers himself a pretty normal, sane person. He's always been especially attached to specific people in his life. When he was an infant, he showed a clear preference for his brother, especially when neither of his parents seemed to be able to calm him down. 

As a toddler and a young child, he spent nearly every waking moment running around with Sakura, playing games and getting into whatever kind of mischief they could on the Uchiha compound. Sakura's family had been honor bound to Sasuke for generations, but as kids, it was always Sakura getting them into trouble and Sasuke's sweet secondborn-son face getting them out of it. 

Their parents had floated the idea of a marriage contract between the two of them when they were around fourteen; Sakura had been aware of the fact that she was a lesbian by then, and had figured if she couldn't take Ino as her lawful-wife, having Sasuke as a lawful-husband wouldn't suck too bad. He was her best friend after all. Sasuke had rolled his eyes and drawled about how charmed he was by being her second choice. Sakura had pinched his nose. 

Naruto is different than that. 

Something in Sasuke's stomach stands up and flutters when his eyes are on Naruto. He doesn't know how to describe it. It's not like he's been sleeping and suddenly he's awake. It's more like -- 

It's more like his breathing's been restricted. Like he's been wearing three flak jackets, each on top of the other, wrapped tightly around his chest. And he was born that way, so he never knew that breathing could be easy. And now Naruto is in front of him and the flak jackets are all off and suddenly there's so much air in Sasuke's lungs he's starting to get dizzy.

Naruto has a bright red-orange seal at the center of his forehead, shaped like a three pronged leaf. It's an odd shape, one Sasuke has never seen before in fuinjutsu, but that makes sense because he's in Uzushio, the place that literally invented the art form.

Naruto also has dark brown freckles that are spread out over his nose. His skin is brown and he looks like he would be warm if Sasuke just reached out and touched him. The golden circlet on his head is shaped like one long sprig of seaweed, and that's what he wears in the place of a hita-ate. 

"Being the queen of Uzushio is as much an elected position as it is a birth one," Konan explains to Sakura as they all settle down in the administrative office in the middle of Uzushio. "Kushina-ojou-sama was elected to the throne when her father Uzumaki Naozumi stepped down to dedicate his life to the art of kitsune senjutsu. He has been in deep study since then."

"Kitsune senjutsu?" Sakura asks, ever the curious type. "I knew the Uzumaki were the emissaries of the fox spirits, but I didn't know there was an entire kind of senjutsu for the fox spirits!"

Konan nods, charmed at Sakura's interest. Sasuke is charmed by the curve of Naruto's chin, and the dimple that rounds out in his left cheek when he smiles. 

"When the Nine-Tailed Fox spirit made its vow to Uzumaki Mito, it disappeared into a den under a volcano in the bowels of Fire Country," Konan says, politely nodding her head to Sasuke as she says it. "That volcano is somewhere in the ancestral lands of the Uchiha clan. After the spirit went into hibernation, the kitsune populations in Fire Country and in Whirlpool started to grow, so shinobi were able to form contracts with them. Only the Uzumaki can form contracts directly to the Nine-Tailed spirit himself, but many of the kitsune on the island are his descendants, and they've become partners with multiple shinobi in Uzushio." 

_'Like housecats,' _Sasuke thinks, '_but twice as feral.' _

He had seen a number of smaller looking foxes trotting beside people in Uzushio as Konan and Minato led them through the village towards the administration building at its center. All of those summons had a single tail, which probably spoke to their strength. If only Kushina and Naruto could contract with the Nine-Tailed spirit because of their ancestors vow, then they'd probably be the only ones with summons that had more than one tail. 

"Naruto-ouji-sama is a student of kitsune senjutsu as his mother was before him," Konan continues, and Naruto seems to preen at the way she says his formal title. "If he continues his studies at his current rate, he'll be the Uzumaki candidate for the crown whenever Kushina-ojou-sama decides to step down."

Minato snorts from in front of them, and Kakashi seems to snicker a bit as well. 

"Fat chance seeing that happen in this life," Minato says, knocking faintly on the office door he's had them all stop in front of. "Our queen's been dreaming of the crown since she was a girl."

"Come in!" shouts a voice from the other side of the door, and as Minato opens it, he bellows, "Honey, I'm home!"

Naruto seems to gain an extra burst of energy when it comes to his mother, because he's diving into the room as quickly as Minato's made enough space for them to get through the doorway. He crosses the room, all color and smiles to lean over the queen of Uzushio's desk and slap a kiss on her cheek. 

"That's not very princely of you, Naruto," Uzumaki Kushina says, bussing her son on the cheek as he leans away from her.

She's nearly a dead ringer for her great-great grandmother Uzumaki Mito. Her hair is a brighter shade of red, but her eyes are grey as two chips of flint. While Naruto wears a golden seaweed circlet, Kushina wears the traditional flat plated headdress of the leader of Uzushio, like Mito had before her, and Uzumaki Ashina had before her. 

Despite the crown, she's dressed quite casually, in a high collared, white sleeveless blouse and a long teal skirt, an obi with Uzushio's signature spiral knotted tidily at her back. She's got the same red seal on her forehead as Naruto's, except instead of three prongs, the leaf on her forehead sports five. 

Sasuke guesses that has something to do with the kitsune senjutsu Konan was telling Sakura about, but he doesn't have much time to think more on it, because there's a massive fuck-off pair of foxes lounging about in the Queen of Uzushio's office. 

One is settled down behind Kushina's desk, big as a lion, with five tails laid over its nose as it naps. The other is smaller, about the size of a full grown wolf, with three tails, and is barreling towards -- 

Sakura goes down hard on her ass with a 'thump' and she's got a lapful of a yipping fox trying to lick her face. 

"Kurama!" Naruto yelps, diving away from his mother to get an arm around his ninken (Sasuke assumes?). "That's not polite, 'ttebayo!"

Kurama only yips again and wriggles. The fox changes size, and suddenly is only as large as a kitten. He drops out of Naruto's arms and skitters up onto Sakura's lap, purring up a storm. 

"That's alright," Sakura says, laughing now that it's clear she isn't in present danger. She hadn't gone for a weapon when the animal had bowled her over, probably because knifing a prince's pet was a bad way to go about diplomatic ties or whatever. "He's just excited."

She scritches the fox under the chin, and Kurama paws at her until she scoops him up in her arms, and then he relaxes. 

"He normally doesn't take to new people so well," Naruto says by way of an apology. 

"Maa, Naruto," Kushina rises from her desk, and the fox beside her flicks its ears up in recognition. "Your Kyuu-jiji did the same thing when your father first came to the island when he was a brat, 'ttebane. This is a very good sign for your first mission outside of the village."

Sasuke looks from Kushina down to the fox that she's just referred to as Naruto's uncle Kyuu. He grumbles in his sleep but otherwise makes no notice of the humans interrupting his nap. 

"I remember that story," Kakashi says, putting a finger on his chin. "Didn't Kyuu-san try to bite you, sensei?" 

"If you listen to the way Kushina tells it," Minato retorts. He settles down onto one of the wide flat windowsills, keeping an eye on his adopted village while his queen tends to the administration of the nation. 

"You've still got the scar on your ankle, Minato-kun," Kushina says, winking at her husband. "Now, let's get down to business!"

She opens a drawer on her desk and pulls out a tidy blue file. She thumbs through it, taking out a few photographs that she places on her desk. Konan and Karin have melted back, completely in silence. Sasuke's in awe of their control. 

The Handmaid Guard of Uzushio was the tradition that gave birth to Konoha's ANBU Covert Ops division, a position that Obito had been vying for as long as Sasuke had been old enough to hear his cousin babble on about it. 

Their name had changed briefly in the generations between the first one and the current one; with more men than customary on the squad, the name change had seemed pertinent enough to change. 

Sasuke knows that he can only see two of them in the room, but there are supposed to be four more shinobi on Naruto's guard, not to mention the six others that were supposed to make up Kushina's. If all of them were hidden at the same time, all of them watching over two people in the same room, and Sasuke hadn't sensed them at all -- 

He's suddenly aware that Uzushio shinobi are _very _different from Konoha shinobi. Then again, that was the point of missions like these, right? 

"There's a bridge builder that needs a bodyguard detail from Uzushio mainland into the Land of Waves," Kushina says, tapping her finger on a black and white photo of an older man who doesn't seem happy to have his picture taken. "His name is Tazuna, and he's being targeted for trying to complete a bridge stretching from the Land of Waves to Kirigakure proper. Trying to stimulate his local economy, but someone doesn't like it. He needs protection on his way back to the Land of Waves, and while he oversees the completion of the project."

Sasuke's brow knits together; that didn't sound right. He doesn't open his mouth to contradict her because he was raised to respect women, but his eyes do flick to Kakashi as his superior. 

"Because these bridges also have potential for Uzushio, my Naruto will be accompanying you on this assignment," Kushina adds, winking at her son. "Kiri is surrounded by several islands, and Uzushio's history of isolationism has kept us from making good allies with other seafaring peoples. The Land of Kelp and the Land of Seafoam are both open to starting trade with us, provided we prove ourselves trustworthy."

Sakura (who is still petting a purring Kurama, his three tails swishing happily over the crook of her elbow) asks, "Because Tazuna-san has built bridges for them as well?" 

Kushina nods at Sakura, her gaze approving over the younger kunoichi. 

"Bingo, Haruno-kun," the queen says. "Safe passage for Tazuna equals new trade routes for Uzushio. We contracted out the extra muscle to Konoha because, well, I missed your dumb genin sensei, 'ttebane."

Kakashi pinches the bridge of his nose, and Kushina sticks her tongue out at him. Sasuke is beginning to think every adult in his life is some kind of idiot. Except Itachi, probably. 

"There is something that troubles me, now that you mention it," Kakashi says, pinching his chin. "That isn't at all the mission we were assigned in Leaf."

Kushina's cheerful disposition doesn't drop. Her smile says on her face, and her playful demeanor doesn't seem to crack. It's something in her eyes that changes. A sudden seriousness that reminds Sasuke he's standing in a room with the single strongest shinobi in Uzushio, her husband, her beautiful son, and their massive kitsune spirit-summons. 

It's much more than he bargained for when he left home this morning. 

"The bridge builder's daughter Tsunami is currently in Konoha seeking political asylum," Kakashi says, removing their mission scroll from his shuriken pouch. "It was Tsunami-san that commissioned us to ferry a number of documents pertaining to a shipping magnate called Gatō."

"Expense reports, I imagine," Kushina says, her brilliant smile still not faltering, even as she takes a seat at her desk. Kyuu lifts his head from his nap to rest his massive jaw on Kushina's thigh. She tangles her fingers in the fox's dark red fur and leans her chin on her hand. "Doctored ones and real ones?"

"Bingo," Kakashi replies. "He's got a monopoly on everything that goes in and comes out of the village. He's been killing off parts of Tazuna's crew. Tsunami-san smuggled herself, the documents, and her young son Inari out of the Land of Waves on one of Gatō's boats with her husband's help. She hired us to get these documents to Kiri."

Kushina nods, her eyes going half lidded as she thinks. 

"The islands around Kiri are like its colonies. They have their own governments, but certain crimes against humanity on the islands can allow for extradition to Kiri for a criminal trial. It's clever of her."

"But it's not what her father is paying you for," Kakashi finishes. 

"They seem to have tricked us both," Kushina muses, now rubbing Kyuu's soft ears between her fingers. "Baa-chan's not gonna like that."

"No, I doubt Tsunade-sama will," Minato adds, speaking up from his place by the window. "But you know how she is with women and children."

The older shinobi in the room, or at least the ones that know the Yondaime Hokage personally, seem to all agree on the sentiment. Sasuke is pretty sure all of the responsible adults in his life are definitely ridiculous. 

"Tazuna-san doesn't seem to want us to be aware of how dire the situation is," Kushina muses. "That's his pride getting the better of him. He's an old man, so I'm not surprised."

She flips the file on her desk shut with resolve and looks back up at the genin in her room. 

"Attention!"

Sasuke and Sakura click their heels together in unison, and Naruto is only a moment behind with the crossed fist of Uzushio's salute. 

"Your mission has not changed," she says to the three of them. "You will still act as the bridge-builder's security detail from Uzushio to the Land of Waves, and will remain there until he successfully completes his bridge. I imagine afterward, it will be much easier to get Tsunami-san's documents to Kiri, as by then, the bridge will have been built. Otherwise, I will leave it to Hatake-kun's discretion to decide how best to lead this mission."

She claps her hands like it's as easy as that, and leans her elbows on her desk when she asks, "Any questions?" 

Sasuke is pretty sure he isn't the only one who's confused.

* * *

"So this bridge builder guy basically lied to your mom's face." 

Sakura is surprised by how immediately comfortable she feels with Naruto. It helps that his spirit-summons seems to like her. Kurama had sniffed at Sasuke and chewed on his hair when Sakura tried to introduce the two of them. Sasuke had snarled at the thing, which had snarled right back, then coughed Sasuke's wet hair back into his face. 

Sakura had probably laughed too loudly at that. 

"And she still wants us to take the mission," Sasuke adds, hands shoved in his pockets as the four of them head to the docks of Uzushio. 

"When people are in need, you help them," Naruto says, voice firm.

Sakura looks at him, this boy in his loud orange-blue-red cloak, his bright yellow hair as long as his mother's, and the gold glittering on his forehead. He looks like a prince, a real prince, like the ones Ino used to moon over when they were little girls reading storybooks. Sakura's pretty sure she'd follow Naruto into battle. She probably wouldn't swoon if he killed a dragon for her, though. That was more Sasuke's area.

"That's the Uzushio way," he continues. "If Uzumaki Mito hadn't helped Nobi Tsubaki, then Tsubaki-sama would never have been able to help Uchiha Izuna, and end the war. Because of that, we always pay kindness forward on the island. It's like the whole country's nindō."

Sakura smiles. 

"That's wonderful, ouji-sama."

Naruto nearly chokes when he hears it, and he immediately raises his hands and flapping them. It's kind of cute. 

"Oh man, please don't call me that, you sound like my nee-san," he says, his face flushing with embarrassment. "Nobody calls me 'prince' here, not really. You can call me Naruto."

Sakura pops Kurama up onto her shoulder, who easily curls around her neck and lays his tail and his chin on her shoulder. He flashes his teeth at Sasuke who narrows his eyes right back at the creature teasing him. 

She uses one hand to steady the fox on her shoulder, and the other to reach out to shake Naruto's hand. 

"Then please call me Sakura, Naruto-kun," and when Naruto takes her hand, Sakura can feel Kurama nearly vibrate with the force of his purr. "The mean one you can call Sasuke, and you can call Kakashi-sensei whatever you want."

"But don't call him for dinner," Sasuke mutters. "Old man always skips out on the bill."

"Maa, Sasuke-kun," Kakashi says, his nose buried in a saucy book with sexy versions of the myths of Fire and Whirlpool. "If we get through this whole mission unscathed, I'll buy dinner for all of you. Even Kurama-chan."

The spirit-summons gives a cheery bark, and Sakura's surprised. She knows she shouldn't be, most summons can understand human languages. She just hasn't heard Kurama speak, and she hadn't heard Kyuu speak either. Maybe they were just waiting for the right time. Kakashi's ninken barked and spoke too, but only if they liked you, or they had to because Kakashi said so. 

"He likes eggs sunny-side-up and plums cut into little pieces," Naruto supplies helpfully.

"You spoil him, Naruto-kun," Kakashi chides, but there's no real discipline behind it. Naruto shrugs, but Sasuke rolls his eyes. 

"Like you don't sleep in a giant puddle with your dogs every night," he mutters under his breath. 

"You weren't complaining the last time you and Sakura-chan slept over after endurance training," Kakashi sing-songs, and it's finally Sasuke's turn to go red, "in my beautiful, resplendent home, which I welcomed you into."

Naruto seems fixated on the way the color rises on the back of Sasuke's neck, and Sakura smothers her smile. And she thought her insta-crush on Ino had been ridiculous. 

"He's got a soft spot for dogs," Sakura says, pretending to whisper to Naruto. "When he's done being a career shinobi, he wants to retire to the old Uchiha lands with a shiba inu and take care of the old temples with his brother. Believe me, I've read his diary."

"I don't have a diary!" Sasuke hisses. 

"That's a nice dream to have, though, Uchiha-san," Naruto says, voice scratchy the way voices get when kids do a lot of shouting when they're little. "I never feel closer to my ancestors than when I'm out in the open water. If you feel drawn to the land, then something must be pulling you there. The land remembers. It'll probably be happy to have you back!"

There's a smoothness in the way he speaks, in the way he unruffles Sasuke's feathers that speaks to his role as a prince. Sakura can see why even random citizens of Uzushio acknowledge him with a wave or a greeting whenever he goes past. He's universally loved by his people. He'd make a fine king when he was old enough.

As it is now, Sasuke's probably going to combust. Sakura's pretty sure Namikaze Minato won't be the last Konoha shinobi to turn diplomat to stay with a pretty island flower. Sakura's known Sasuke almost all his life, and he's never so much as _breathed _anything about a crush on anyone. But now that it's happening in real time, Sakura's got to wonder. Does she look that ridiculous when she's mooning over Ino?

_'Definitely.' _

The voice startles her. It's -- old. Not like an old person's but, the kind of old that chakra is. The kind of old that settles deep in your bones. Old like the trees Senju Hashirama pulled up from the earth when he was first carving out space for the village in the valley. 

And it's coming from inside her own head. Which is strange. Very strange. She forms a discreet 'kai' to release a genjutsu in case she'd accidentally been placed under one; the Sharing Grounds in Konoha were very similar to the ones on Uzushio. If you passed by them, you were liable to get hit with something. 

But no illusion flutters away, or shatters in front of Sakura. Instead, Kurama tilts his little head up to nibble on her ear. 

"Was it you?" she asks, smoothing her hands down the fox's soft neck. Kurama only purrs, and nibbles some more on her ear with his little teeth. 

"Nah," she says again. "Couldn't be."

"Sakura-chan!"

Naruto's voice startles her, and he and the boys are already several meters ahead of her. She hadn't noticed that she had stopped when she heard that voice. 

She looks at them, at Naruto, who's turned around and is walking backwards, slowing down to wait for her. Sasuke who tilts his head over his shoulder to see what the hold-up is. Kakashi, whose eyes are firmly in his book of 'fine erotica', who doesn't need to check back to see if she's going to catch up, because he trusts that she will. 

There's something about all of it that feels oddly right. Like everything is slotting into place somehow. 

"Last one to the docks has to call the bridge-builder a liar!" she shouts, and with a steadying hand on Kurama's little body, she vaults herself forward towards them. 

Naruto laughs, and like orange lightning he flickers into nowhere, then reappears a few meters away. Sakura elbows Sasuke in the gut on her way past him, and he yanks her by the back of her shirt (right on her Haruno circle of the seasons) to catch up to Naruto. 

"Maa," she can hear Kakashi say as she gets her feet under her and presses forward. "What spirited young shinobi."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> naruto's seaweed circlet is the newer form of the gold clips that mito wore in 'before you' and that she wears in her canon uniform. the clips that mito gave hashirama to wear were repurposed and passed down as wedding regalia, and now minato wears them in his hair as they were a betrothal present from kushina :)
> 
> baby naruto probably couldn't say 'konan-onee-san' because that's too many syllables, so his nickname for her is ko-nee-chan, which still has most of the sounds in her name! much like naruto loves it when konan calls him a prince (she definitely read bedtime stories to him as a kid okay) konan also loves it when naruto calls her ko-nee-chan. as a baby, he absolutely called her 'koko'. konan still gets teary when she thinks about it. her sweet baby brother whom she will gladly protect with her life and also lots of paper. karin is sick of them both. 
> 
> next chapter we meet tazuna some demon brothers and our favorite big bads from wave! wonder how things are going to go with this expedition for our young heroes. wonder how tsunami and inari are doing back in konoha. wonder wonder wonder!!! see you all next time xx

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is the boruto of the before you 'verse
> 
> sakura's head isn't on the monument bc she knew she'd be reincarnated and it'd be mad awkward if she came back to life looking like her dead self, y'know?
> 
> i imagine polygamy is the opposite of a big deal in konoha, where it is an open secret that mito and tsubaki were madly in love even though mito and hashirama were married lmao. what was a cultural norm in uzushio is now a cultural norm in konoha. and that's how we get all our ot3s, everybody. write 100k words and change canon entirely. love you! xx


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